I have the sweetest
border collie named Dylan and she is always getting into
things she shouldn't be! Dylan is only one and a half years
old and has already been to the emergency
vet for stitches and removal of objects from her stomach
(matchbox cars and carpenters nails!! at the same time!!!) I
do everything I can to keep her out of things, she goes to the dog
sitter during the day and is home with me after work and still finds
time for mischief. One night she was playing in the back yard with her
best friend Mac and they both decided it would be a good idea to open
the door to the tool shed (wasn't locked..my fault) and try to bury as
many tools as they could get their paws
on. Turns out she found a small pair of gardening sheers (yikes!) and
buried them too! Only problem was she buried them with the sharp end
sticking out!! Needless to say that was a bloody mess as she then ran
over them and sliced open her back paw. I was soooo happy to
have pet
insurance, if not the bills for simple stitches, shots, check
ups and that stupid cone thing she had to wear around her head, would
have been astronomical. Everyone can get veterinary pet
insurance for their dogs, no matter how old and no matter
what pre-existing conditions they may have. The place where I
get my insurance is called Embrace Pet Insurance and it is a real life
(and money) saver!! You can get a dog
health insurance quote online for free when you visit the
site. It is really something every pet owner should look into. I may be
pass the puppy age, however I have a feeling my crazy pup will find a
way to get into more trouble down the road!

Sundance likes to think of himself as the master gardener in the house. When I first moved in with my current s.o.(Mark) Sundance had some adjustment issues. First, he would destroy items belonging to Mark or his son, but leave my stuff *untouched* - this went as far as chewing up rubber insulation pieces of the Alfa Romeo Mark was restoring. I got out of the bath one evening to find pieces of the car all over the downstairs.

He also got into Peter's (Mark's son) room one day and chewed up every stuffed animal and toy in reach. He also did his best to dig up all of the rose bushes in the backyard and even went as far as pulling one out completely and dragging it around the backyard (do they have absolutely no nerve endings in their mouths? this was a *thorny* rose bush).

Oh yes, can't forget his favorite -electrical cords - had to rewire the iron and several of our floor lamps numerous times. For one lamp we even had to buy heavy duty metal conduit to thread the cord through so that he would have to stop chewing it. We've been living with Mark and his son for 1 1/2 years now and we have moved into a much bigger house, with a great big yard and a fence that has a spot which is low enough so that he can watch the deer go by.

He hasn't destroyed anything in about a year, we can even leave the door to Pete's room open, but he does still dig nice deep holes in the unlandscaped part of the yard to lie down in. I love him more than anything in the world!

Elaine
eawohl@oregon.uoregon.edu

From: ezpetwsh@rain.org (M A Henderson)

DeeatFW@aol.com wrote:

>Kato (15 months) takes his OOEYs (which for you uninitiated is a squeaky toy!)
>and stuffs them under the couch. Then he scratches up a storm (and incidentally
>the couch) trying to GET to said OOEY. He would do this 10 times a night
>until my husband fit boards under the couch to block the OOEY.

And I thought my BC Meg was the only one who did that! She nearly drove us crazy till we blocked the area off. How many of you have lost vacuum cleaners? I lost one before I learned. The worst mess I ever had was a gallon of shampoo that looked just like the empties they used to play with. You can't imagine what it's like to try to get shampoo out of carpet.

From: jwlovell@nospam.ix.netcom.com (John Lovell)
[remove 'nospam.']

This isnšt a REAL horror story (actually it was kind of cute in a) twisted wicked sick kind of way). . . I was in the office, logged onto the computer and in the middle of writing a rather lengthy email. I was just about done when theconnection on the computer was broken. Worse, I thought, something must be wrong with the phone lines because theconnection on the phone line was still open, according to the light on the phone in the office. I worked for severalminutes trying to reset the phone line. I shut down the computer and restarted it. I manually turned off the modem and restarted it. Nothing worked. I couldn't break the connection and I couldn't get the modem to dial out. I then noticed that Kirby wasn't in the room.

Now, as you exit the office, you enter a hall that leads straight to the living room. There is another phone in the living room in plain view at the end of the hall. It's a speaker phone. On a table at the end of the couch. Kirby was on the couch (he's allowed) with both front legs on the armrest closest to the phone. The łhands free" button that turns on the speakerphone had been pressed. There's an LCD display on the phone. No otherbuttons had been touched. I know BCs are smart. I know they have creative ways of saying, "you've been doing other things too long and it's time to pay attention to me." But to leave the room, go to another room, disconnect the modem remotely and then sit and wait for me to come out and find him? Nahhhh, couldn't have been . . .

From: "Mimi Koberlein"

Hi, I'm new to the list and just could not pass up this thread. Roscoe, our 13 month old BC also loves the inside of tennis shoes. Is it the smell? He just goes for the little pads inside and rips them out. We have a good sized backyard, and he and the cat have free reign of it and access to ourlaundry room/office/gym. When he was a little pup, he liked to pull books off of the shelves and shred them. He seemed to have a method to his madness though, one day college textbooks, the next day Stephen King books, the next books about sports! When he got his big dog teeth, he seemed to get over this. Then again, by then all the books were relegated to the top of the bookshelf (or the garbage).

My husband and I (well, ok, it was me) decided that Roscoe was old enough to stay in the house during the day when he turned one He was great for a couple days, then started in on pillows and unfortunately, my husband's glasses. Popped out the lenses then chewed the plastic stuff of the ends of the frames. I told him to get contacts ;) Have any of you found your BC's "afraid" of random household objects?Whenever I take the lint screen out of the dryer to clean it, if Roscoe sees it he runs and starts up a session of hiya. He also went thru a period where he barked at anything that hung from the ceiling (chandeliers, ceiling fans, you name it).WE LOVE HIM!

From: Kubben@aol.com

Chance: After breaking a tooth trying to chew his way out of the crate, I started leaving him in the basement when I had to go to work. There was an old twin bed down there that he DESTROYED. Every time I came home, it looked as if it had snowed in the basement. Mattress stuffing everywhere. After a while, all that was leftwere springs, which I finally hauled to the dump. He also chewed up the wooden headboard on the bed. He also chewed up the wooden stair steps leading upstairs. They still bear his teeth marks. Upstairs, I wasn't watching himvery carefully one time and he destroyed one of my brand new kitchen chairs. Ate right through the seat cushion andchewed up the legs. At 4 1/2 he finally doesn't chew anymore, but he still pulls the stuffing out of stuffed animals.

Cody: Has always been a child chaser and nipper. He has nipped a couple of kids on the butt. Didn't hurt them, but did scare them. So now he has to always be put away somewhere when kids are around. I have really tried to break him ofthis, but I have been totally unsuccessful. It's like he is a different dog when kids are running around, and he doesn'tlisten to me at all. He is just too intent on the kids. He becomes a psycho dog and I wonder if he even realizes what he is doing. He even bites at me when I run past him He has ripped holes in the seat of several pairs of my jeans. He also ripped a hole in the side of my Doberman. My guess is that he was probably nipping at the dobie as they were running around the yard, and caught a tooth in his skin. Took 12 stitches to close it up. But I love my BC's.

From: sheppard@atm.ox.ac.uk

Ok here are some of my horror stories about my two little darlings, Bess and Millie. Both (touch wood) are now quite settled and well adjusted BC's giving and receiving lots of love and attention! I got Bess when she was a year old and Millie when she was a pup. The first time I left them I shut them in the kitchen....obviously not well enough because they broke out and chewed their way through cushions etc.....

Other times they have got through the carpet - yes they chewed the blasted carpet!!! - shoes, more cushions (Bess is the cushion expert!) table legs, chair legs, washing up bowls, knives (howthey haven't done themselves injury beats me!)...the list is endless!

The main horror however, is my car! When I first got them I'd take them in to work with me, give them a run in the park in the morning another at lunch time and then inthe evening. Whilst they were (meant to be) sleeping they were infact redesigning my car. They chewed the parcel shelf brackets beyond repair, the gear stick, the handbrake, the indicator switch, the steering column adjustor, the handles for moving the seats back and forth, the tax disc, my parking permit. The piece de resistance however was the door. They managed to make a tear in the material and within a short period of time had totally devastated the interior of the car door!!!! Like all material had been stripped, all foam removed, chewed and spat out all over the car!!!!

The devastation is still there for all to see to this day. Unfortunately they don't make those kind of door panels anymore so I'm trying toget one from a Breakers yard or something. We still get the odd naughtiness - like if we forget to move the bin out of the kitchen - but on the whole they are very good.

From: jiander@relay.nswc.navy.mil

Well if we're making a compilation of BC horror stories I guess I can add my .02 . Turbo (now 15 months) was at his most destructive at around the 4-5 month period. For several weeks he decided it was time to redecorate the house, he started by rounding off the sharp corners on thekitchen cabinets ( hešs very safety conscious), and proceeded to help me clean out all my old magazines by systematically jumping over then gate which was supposed to keep him in the kitchen, and retrieving a magazine at a time from the family room, jumping back over the gate out his doggie door and shredding the magazine in the back yard. The mess was visible from 4 blocks away as I arrived home ( I imagine my neighbors had more than a few laughs at my expense that day), this is also how I came to learn that Turbo had outgrown his puppy-sized gate.

Once the gate had been replaced Turbo was limited to redesigning the kitchen while I was at work, and once again he helped me by pointing out a potentially dangerous situation. Apparently the linoleum floor in the kitchen had started to curl up from one cornernear his doggie door and this was all he needed. In the time I was at work he managed to pull up half of the kitchenfloor and drag it into the back yard. He found this soooo satisfying that he did the same thing in the foyer a few days laterwhile I cut the lawn.

Turbo's penchant for home repair has subsided but his love of plastic still exists, his favorite łoff-limits" item to shred is film canisters, these are now kept out of sight/reach and he confines his chewing nyla-bones and his sister's (GR) ears when she'll let him.

From: Darby Lewes

I don't see what all this fuss about BC misbehavior is about--can't you people control your dogs? OUR pooches are perfect darlings. Well, yes, Grover did chew that hole in the wall, but you can hardly see it after dark and the poor thing was probably trying to tell us he needed more calcium. And he tried tomake up for it by antiqueing all the wooden baseboards for us. And although WYSIWYG did eat the entire back seat of the car, she was looking for a toy that she'd lost--sweet dearest didn't want us to go to the expense of replacing it--toys are so expensive these days. And when we put up the baby gate in the kitchen, the "babies" ate it--but that was justbecause they were upset that we didn't trust them. Quite understandable.

And when we were trying to crate-train Folly, she did spend fourteen straight nights barking, howling, and screaming without pause from eleven PM until four AM(fortunately, she could catch up on her sleep during the day). But that was to be expected--we were, after all, treatingher like some sort of (shudder) ANIMAL. All you have to do to coexist happily with BCs is to keep things in their proper perspective: just remember that everything and everyone on earth was put here for Border Collie amusement, entertainment, and comfort. No problem at all, really.

From: shoemaker.6@osu.edu (Barbara Ann Shoemaker)

Well, I have to shareSable's wonderful attributes with everyone! There is this obsession with lamp shades that is unbelievable, needless to say I have none left in the house! I have replaced, mended and finally thrown them all away. The finale was the evening she knocked over a lamp, which was on, grabbed the shade off and left the lamp burning a large hole in the living room rug which went into the floor. When I arrived home, the house was filled with smoke, the rug was burned and the floor burned. It was lucky I got home when I did, but there sat Sable smiling at me.

I have very creative woodwork, no curtains (she loves to tear them down, when I go out and leave her in, better view I guess), too many broken dishes to count, no handles left on any of my steak knives or spatulas (real easy to use now!), trash hound too many times to count, and OH, I almost forgot, her favorite is to get into the bathtub and eat any soap that many be available, burping bubbles for minutes afterwards. There is also no child gate in the world that will hold her, my only lifesaver is that she is 2 1/2 now and we are down to one or two incidents a day!

From: ezpetwsh@rain.org (M A Henderson)

Meg will be 8 soon but I remember when she was young we had a stove with a drawer at the bottom. ONE time her frisbee went under the drawer and she went into her digging and whining. I pulled the drawer all the way out to get the frisbee. DONE right? WRONG! The frisbee never went under there again but the digging and whining went on for months. I had to take the drawer out many, many times to show her that the frisbee was no longer there. At the time I had 5 Brittany's and was totally unprepared for this kind of behavior.

When I brought Meg home at 7 weeks she took over as pack leader within the first 48 hours. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed it. I had made a roast for dinner and as was my habit I put the empty pan on the floor for the dogs to lick out. All 5 Britt's dove in. Meg walked up, snarled and the Britt's took off and let her have the pan to herself. from that day on, she was the boss. She was not yet 8 weeks old.

Another favorite trick of hers was to take a squeaky toy and drop it in the water bowl where it would fill with water. Then she would come near a person and bite down on it and create a stream of water all over whatever or whomever was near. So creative these BC's. I swear she was laughing the whole time. I love this thread, it's bringing back such wonderful memories.

From: KATE@bombay.GPS.CALTECH.EDU

Conan ate the wiring on the stereo in my truck and was working on the knobs. At least, however, he didn't mark in there like the wolf hybrid that I used to have! Seriously, though, my biggest "horror" is long term poop breath. They won't eat food with Forbid or meat tenderizer in it, so that won't do any good.

From: Catherine Britell

These are minor things. The major ones have been averted so far by careful supervision and crating.

1. Unstuff the hassock. We have a hassock that has a little skirt that has some stiffening fabric in it. Harp constantly sneaks over there to carefully open up the skirt and sneak out a hunk of this fabric, which he then shreds into tiny pieces.

2. Steal the napkin. If there's a paper napkin sitting idly on someone's lap or the table, he'll carefully plan a sneak attack, grab the napkin and take it to the corner totear it up.

3. Fill and empty the toilet. When he's left alone in the vicinity of the bathroom, he'll go in and pull things like toilet paper, magazines, towels, soap (yecch!) etc. into the toilet, get them nice and drippy and then throw them around (except for the toilet paper, which he eats and then throws up).

4. The teacup-elbow-nudge. (This is most often done when a guest is present). Just when the person is lifting the teacup to take a sip, he magically appears from nowhere and nudges the person's elbow...variously rattling teeth, spilling hot tea all over the place and engendering many...er...strong feelings. Then will make up for it by licking the tea off the person's face.

5.Chew-up-the-sunglasses...."But...mom! They smell so human-y and interesting...didn't you leave them on the coffee table FOR ME?????" Yep...he looks really great in the park .

From: Lata Prabhu 512-356-7894

I can't believe it that I have a chance to list all the things that Tika destroyed but they donšt seem like a horror thing any more. Like for example, for the first week that we brought her home , we used tocover her crate with a big blanket to keep her from all the distractions. She was pretty quiet at night, but all this time she was busy scratching the wall by putting her little paw out of the crate.There was a deep hole carved in the wall underneath the wall plugs. I have a planter to cover the ugly spot. This was a brand new house too.

She loves plastic and rubber. She has destroyed all her plastic squeaky toys, ripped off a few cushions, chewed the edge of the wooden arms on my glider on the porch. Oh her favourite item of ripping apart were the lawn chairs.( the woven plastic ) She destroyed all four of them in installments. Now I have replaced them with molded plastic chairs. She hasnšt discovered that they too are chewable. My welcome home black rubber mat was torn to shreds and spread all over the lawn. My plastic empty planters.

She has chewed the edges of some of my siding in the backyard. One day when we tied her to the door knob, she managed to rip off the cable wire and broke the connectors of the extension cords.So we did not have TV for a week. But really, after reading through some of the horror stories you guys have, I am relieved. I was dumb enough to get a BC little after a month of purchasing a new home We have started trusting her by herself in the house for an extended period of time and so far I havenšt seen any noticeable damage (keep my fingers crossed).

From: Dorcas Beaton

Oh my, these stories remind me of all the little challenges of raising Kunde.... Once we began unplugging lamps so that she would not electrocute herself while *shortening* our cords, she began seeking higher things to state her unhappiness with being alone...she pulled wreaths off walls (painted ones) (5 feet off the ground) to shred in the living room, chewed the side board on my pine bed, chewed the heels off my shoes and did them in again when my roommate left them on the table after picking them up at the shoe repair (so I never did see them repaired). Finally our house looked hilarious, everything 5 feet off the ground, items on the table left dead centre with no chairs around etc.

So Kunde got a lovely French door on her kitchen and now the problems are over. Of course we had to buy baby gates -- oh yes, two baby gates because one is just a source of amusement to jump back and forth over -- the gates go inside the door so that she wouldn't scratch the door or try to push through the glass. Anyway she is three now, and is gradually becoming the most amazing dog. Still stuffs tennis balls under the couch and yips at them, also drops tennis balls down the stairs for a great game of fetch or destroy the vase with her humans. Unstuffs her stuffed toys (except for tigger a favorite who never gets chewed for some reason) during dinner parties. My these are great dogs!

From: mascon

Came home one day to find the bbq cover ( made of soft vinyl ) chewed to minuscule pieces no bigger than a half dollar! after roaming the yard picking up the destruction I happened upon a different colored piece of this soft stuff hmmmm where did this come from, around one more corner and there it was, the hot tub cover with the middle of it chewed out, Styrofoam and vinyl everywhere, the only thing left was the rimaround the tub. AARRGHH

We eventually got a new cover for tub which Frisco subsequently ate, it is now covered with a piece of wood. Ahh yes what about the landscaping incident, after 2 days of putting down rock ( to cover the holes in the yard ) and plastic landscape edging, and feeling pretty fortified, I came home to see 200 ft. of plastic edging pulled up and chewed, and rocks moved around the yard. I'm starting to think Frisco is trying to single-handedly put his bite into the plastics ban. We just had a new vinyl sun deck put down this year, naaaa he wouldn't?!

From: MerenaS@aol.com

In the first two years of his life, Kerry (now five) managed to chew the insides of countless shoes, chew giant holes in our backyard hammock, chew holes in a newly upholstered couch, chew through our outside phone line twice, break three windows (shatter proof thank God) in our house while attempting to eat the UPS man or chase a squirrel, and swallow enough gravel to cause an intestinal blockage and subsequent dangerous (and $$$$)surgery. He has every delivery, mail person, and even the Avon lady terrorized. He chases planes. This makes life interesting when he's in the car and we drive past an airport. (My weak excuse is better planes than cars.)

The sound of a motor cycle or the sight of a rollerblader will cause him to go berserk. To his credit, he doesn't chase joggers or bicyclists. Nor is he much of a dirt digger. I'm sure there are other things that time has softened the memories of. Oh, I forgot the plexiglass door panel that he broke in my defense. A man came to trim a tree. Kerry was quietly watching mefrom behind the porch door (which has clear plexiglass panels) when the man foolishly raised his hand to point to the tree. Unfortunately, the hand came too close to my head and Kerry broke through the plexiglass panel. Strange, I havenšt been able to get that fellow back to work on my other trees.

From: "Lady B. Brinegar"

I guess the replies to these things can go on and on. I replied to one of the firstones I received regarding Meg's love of getting her head stuck behind the refrigerator and then saw April's comments on Levi's attachment to the same appliance. Meg also loves tennis shoes. She will play with her toys while loungingaround on top of David's sneakers, but loves to lick the inside of mine (they're always damp with 'Meg Spit'--YUCK).

She also takes the ice cubes that we feed her and plays with them by hiding them inside my Keds. Needless to say, she doesn't always get them out, so 1/2 the time there *really* wet. Meg became deathly afraid of garbage cans about a month ago--and I mean all of them, from bathroom wastebaskets to the big kitchen can. Shešs also convinced that my cat is a sheep, and we are frequently treated to the sounds of: bound bound bound, bark, bark, hiss, hiss, bark. . . .

From: "Lady B. Brinegar"

Has anyone ever ended up with their BCs head wedged between the wall and refrigerator/bookcase/table/etc. whiletrying to retrieve said OOEY which they have purposely put there? Meg is a past master at getting stuck behind the refrigerator. We've had to block that off with boards, too.

From: TWHST@vms.cis.pitt.edu

Just a quick list of things Malcolm has chewed in the short time we have had him. And I'm told that Malcolm is as calm a BC as anyone who has met him has ever seen.
1. Curtains - both our living room and the kitchen of one of his foster homes.
2. Underwear - buy stock in Fruit of the Loom
3. The Mail- We have a mail slot, magazines are fair game
4. Plastic - Lids, anything not out of reach
5. 3.5 inch floppy disk from work - I had to tell my boss that my dog ate it, like anyone believes that anymore. With plenty of chew toys and the bedroom doors shut, he is good, but forget any one of those, and look out. On the other hand, the damage has been minimal considering he has the run of the house all day while we are at work. My back yard just has a high cotton content. I remembered that we left the bedroom door open today, so I will be shoveling another load of dog processed laundry soon.

From: Tom Kompare

When I need to think of a new design for my Landscape Architecture classes, all I need to do is let Abby outside in the backyard for a while unattended. She does lovely design work in our yard. Rips up the yummy sod hither and tither, digs soundly designed holes and craters all over the yard. She doesn't like the flower patch I put in the yard (before we got Abby). She has systematically dug up and eaten almost all 100+ flower bulbs I have put in thepatch. I don't know what she will do for her next backyard fix-up project, but she's been giving our deck "the eye."She should teach a class called, BC 391 - "Border Collie Residential Design Theory and Applications"

On the inside of the house, she is our compact cleaning maid. She licks everything. carpets, baseboards, tables, my head, my legs, thecouch, my pillows, the stove, the fridge, full glasses of soda (that she tips over), the iron railing, doors, etc... And yes, she doesn't do windows.

From: Matylou@aol.com

I've been reading these stories in total amazement. Thankfully I don't have any tales to compare with some of the really łhorrible" ones I've been reading about. I attribute that to learning my lesson from my 1st dog, a springer spaniel, having an old BC as my 2nd dog to learn a thing or 2 from and finally to have a personal temperament similar to thedogs (type A, obsessive/compulsive) -- they don't stand a chance.

BUT, every so often I have let my guard down and have been quickly in my place. Louis is a chair-leg biter and has managed to destroy the legs of the only 2 chairs I care about: the leg of a brand new ottoman (we had it barely a month) and an antique dining room chair. When I have a sitterfor my 2 boys, I *always* instruct them *not* to let the dogs out of their crates until the boys are in bed because they *will not* be able to adequately watch 2 BCs (ages 1 1/2 and 3 mos) and 2 boys (ages 10 and 2).

Once I had an older woman watch just the baby at Christmas time (at the time I had an older BC and puppy), but she always felt sorry forthe dog in the crate and let him out regardless of my instruction. I came home to find my favorite houseplant (how can they find the favorite one amongst all the possibilities) strewn all about the newly cleaned living room carpet. The dirt, roots, plant were in every nook and cranny, but the tree was undisturbed.

From: scampbex@ix.netcom.com (SALLY CAMPBELL )

I guess I've enjoyed this thread so much it's time to contribute! April, you wondered HOW we all stood it and some also wonder WHY?! For me, it was sheer GUILT for leaving Baby Billy home alone so much! (If only I'd have been a stay-at-home mommy instead of leaving Billy-Snookums home alone, he wouldn't have acted out! HA! Little did I know!) He's an awfully good boy now, at 5-1. Only wants 150% of my home-time, is all. As a pup, Billy did most of the stuff you've mentioned (including rock-eating and wall remodeling), but nobody has mentioned the unmentionable: dragging THOSE THINGS out of the bathroom wastebasket and shredding them in the living room before your new beau's very eyes! AAAACK!!!

As to unique ways to get attention: Billy learned all by himself that when I said, "ICK! DIRTY ball...Let's wash it!", it would go in the kitchen sink. So he took to flinging it in all by himself. But NOW, when I do the dishes, there is this dervish flinging toys into the sink with the dishes I'm trying to wash! He does tend to force the issue!

From: MossMaurer@aol.com

Thank goodness this dog doesn't livewith me! The BC's name is Gael, but only answers to Misery. My friend brought Misery over for a visit one day. First, Misery squatted in the dogs' water bowl and peed. Later, she jumped onto a dining room chair, put her frontpaws on the dining room table and slurped up half of my husband's cup of coffee. We didn't dare tell him what happened. Misery's visits are now seriously monitored by at least four people.

From: SCSBobby@aol.com

Elaine Wohlgemuthwrote: "he [Sundance] does still dig nice deep holes in the unlandscaped part of the yard to lie down in." I wish my Grover-dozer would limit himself to the unlandscaped portions. He loves to dig his holes next to the base of trees(three that I've found so far immediately around the house -- no telling how many further out or along the property lines), and I'm afraid that he will soon do some serious damage to their roots. He also likes to dig through the mulch in the flower beds to make a cozy nest to relax in.

Earlier this summer as I filled in the nesting hole just outside the sun-porch, I mixed the better part of a container of dog-repellent with the dirt in the theory that even if he started digging he would keep running into the dog-repellent and quit digging. The next morning he was found relaxing in his newly re-excavated nest. His expression seemed to say "This is great! I was wondering how I'd keep the other dogs out of my nest!"

BTW, does anybody know where all that dirt goes to? I can never fill the hole with the dirt I find around it. I always have to dig some up (sometimes I think I'm starting a quarry) and wheelbarrow it over to completely fill the hole. Maybe -- sigh -- someday he'll grow out of it. Right! And a pig will herd sheep!

From: KellyleeH@aol.com

I guess I have been a lot luckier than most. Taz was pretty good for the first two weeks he was left alone - an angel in fact. Then.... We came home to find the couch in shreds. Okay, we said, maybe he was just boredand we didn't like the couch anyway. The next day we came home to find the carpet in the kitchen missing a great big piece. We figured we give it one more try. The missing chunk of kitchen tile and the brand new kitchen table leg with the new teeth imprints convinced us that perhaps Taz should stay in the crate during the day.

Well, we put the crate too close to the wall - we really didn't like that molding anyway. We are working on our fourth crate pad - we tried blankets, but he dug he way through those and put a very nice hole in the carpet, but the crate covers it, so... We have gone through numerous toys (just loves to get the squeaker out) and Taz firmly believes

From: Rick Grant
>After reading all the horror stories, I'd worry that she's not really a
>BC,
>Question - are there other such BC's out there, or is she an aberration?
>I'm just curious.

No I don't think so. I've had Borders since the day I was born when my father put a pup under mycrib and they've all been highly intelligent and well behaved. Tina however is closer to an honourable mention in the Horror List than I'd like. Her activities don't compare with the wonderful retinue of misadventures we're all reading about but she has caused us to
1) Remodel the kitchen
2) Replace a picture window
3) throw out a lot of socks, shoes,belts, other stuff we really didn't need.
4) reduced the value of the car by chewing the handle for the parking brake.

She's just passed the two year mark and we've noticed that her spontaneous chewing activity has all but disappeared.We haven't lost anything of significance for more than six months. Some people have a theory that the chewing reflexes related to the development of the jaw and when the jaw and head have reached adult stability the need to chew fades away. That doesn't explain the kamikaze attacks on the vacuum cleaner when it gets turned on and it doesn't stop the burrow furiously into the ground behavior, nor the wait until no one is looking and raid the garbage or swipe the thawing steaks on the counter behavior.

From: GEOFF@tsteel.com

Fellow BC Feeders, My wife and I almost became part of the hefty percentage that cannot deal with a BC. We obtained a female pup a few weeks after we were married. We both had owned dog as kids and as adults so we thought we were ready. I haven't been THAT stupid in along while. BC pups belong in the same category as fire, flood, hurricanes, and other elemental, destructive forces of nature.

Before we learned the right way to do things, she chewed and destroyed anything that would fit into her mouth.After she was a bit older, we kept her in the back yard. She ate the air conditioner wiring and the lawn mower pullstarter. She tossed her food dish around at 6:00 on the morning so we would feed her. She dug trenches and craters(holes doesn't begin to cover it.) She found EVERY object left by all the previous occupants of that yard.

Finally, my sister recommended Brian Kilcommons' book 'Good Owners, Great Dogs.' She had been using his techniques to train her Rottie and they worked. These techniques really worked well for a BC too. The corrections happening NOT from human action, but as a natural result of the dog doing wrong was a key point. Fergie never associated corrections with people, only with undesired actions. Also the crate training and LOTS and LOTS of positive reward helped. I now have a dog that is still hyper and semi-crazy, but only occasionally destructive and largely well-behaved.

From: Patty Bradley

I love reading all of your horror stories! They make my bc (PeeWee) seem tame by comparison. She is now 5, and seems to have most of that out of her system. Last summer was my first in a new house with ground-level windows facing the back yard. I must've replacedthose screens 10 times last summer. She also ruined the sliding screen door. I am happy to report that I didn't have toreplace screen one this summer! And she no longer digs nor chews things up.

As long as I throw her squeaky ball toher 5 or 6 thousand times each evening, she seems to be content. And talk about bladder control! On the days I leave her inside because of storms or high/low temperatures, she never has an accident. In fact, she usually doesn't ask to go out until 9 or 10 at night. I live alone and she is the supreme protector. We went camping alone this summer, and she wouldnšt even let anyone say "hi" to me as they walked by without barking! God forbid someone put one foot into our campsite!

My biggest problem with her is her jumping on people when they come over (friends), though she doesnšt jump on me when I come home anymore. It's especially bad with her jumping on and knocking down little kids. They are always scared of her, and I don't blame them, even though she just wants to play. I have to keep her away from kids on bikes on our walks because she tries to bite the tires, and of course the kids think she is trying to bite them andget hysterical! She's generally pretty embarrassing on walks, always playing tug-of-war with the leash. What a joy! What can I say, she's my baby.

From: khags@morgan.com (Kelly LeeHagstrand)

Not to get back on a previous subject, but....... Taz, my 10 month old has been through 2 crate pad covers. After the last episode of ripped crate cover and shredded foam rubber, my sister grabbed him and the rippedcrate cover and proceeded to explain to him nicely that ripping the crate cover was a very bad thing (not to mention expensive) and now he was going to be stuck with just the cold metal pan.....

Well, after two weeks, I felt sorry for him and gave him another crate pad. Two days later, I came home to shredded foam rubber. Disappointed, I reached in and took out the crate pad cover. As I went to throw it out, I discovered an amazing thing: There was not one rip or tear in it. TAZ HAD OPENED THE ZIPPER AND PULLED THE FOAM RUBBER OUT! Then I thought maybe I had left it unzipped. So the next day, I put it in the crate again and made sure the zipper was secure and lo and behold, the zipper was open again, without so much as a bite mark! I have to tell you, this scares me!